Distance Education and Rural Women

1. In Thailand in collaboration with the Department of Extension, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperation and an NGO Global South, Thai language translation was completed for the Research Extension and Training Division document on "Improving Extension with Rural Women." The Thai version manual will be used to train village level extension workers both in Government agencies and Non-government Organizations in women friendly approaches in technology transfer.

2. A new Women in development regional initiative is to develop programs on distance education modality to reach rural women. The Women in Development Division has endorsed the program activity in the area of distance education and rural women. An expert consultation was organized in FAO RAP Bangkok to address this issue and the representatives from Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Bangladesh participated. As follow up to this initiative, WID has developed linkages with ESCAP working group on " Satellite Communication Application for Rural Development."

3. Five consultancy reports on "Distance education and rural women" in the areas of regional feasibility, modality and curriculum have been completed. RAP prepared and presented papers related to this issue in various ESCAP meeting and in the Second International Conference on Women in Agriculture held in the USA. Among the consultancies two were completed by Indira Gandhi Open University . The thematic foci were respectively India Distance education Modality to Train Rural women in agriculture and micro-enterprise and Reaching Rural women through distance education : A Model Curriculum for Asia.